(资料图片)

Image Source : China Visual

BEIJING, August 15 (TMTPOST) -- The traffic congestion in the Xidan commercial street in Beijing was caused by the "free rides on the weekend" campaign launched by China"s ride-hailing giant Didi Global, which has continued to attract public attention.

The free ride campaign has two destinations, Xidan commercial street on Saturday and 798 Art District on Sunday, a cultural and creative industry cluster in Chaoyang District, Beijing. The original "selling point" is a "free single ride within 100 yuan and two free single rides per person per day." On Saturday, thousands of people were waiting for a ride online simultaneously due to the campaign.

On the night of last Saturday, many netizens complained on social media that " the cars moved two or three kilometers during more than 40 minutes in Xidan." Others complained that "more than 1,000 people were queuing online for a ride." It caused thousands of cars to flock to Xidan, resulting in a traffic jam. Some netizens were shocked by the "convening power of the Internet platform" and questioned " what kind of responsibility Didi Global should bear."

Didi Global changed the free ride rules on the evening of the same day. Those whose departure was Xidan still enjoyed the free trip, but those whose destination was Xidan could not be included in the free ride list. Didi Global announced that some users were not able to enjoy the free ride last Saturday, so Didi Global will return the order fee to the account.

Currently, the destination of 798 has been removed from the list of free-ride destinations.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, Didi Global"s annual operating income was 173.827 billion yuan ($25.71 billion), up 22.64% year-on-year. The net loss attributable to the parent company was 50.031 billion yuan ($7.4 billion), representing 368.44% more than the loss of 10.680 billion yuan ($1.58 billion) in the same period of the previous year. Didi Global"s online transactions were 2.791 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, or about 64 million less than the third quarter of 2021. Gross transaction volume was $67.2 billion, of which $56.2 billion and $11 billion were from the Chinese market and international markets respectively.